Page 38 - Studio International - January 1972

after he died in 1929. It's a classic now and We became more and more audacious and we Catholic anarchist I would say. He was
maybe in ioo years it will be read in the schools. had public meetings in other places where we interested in Bakunin and he went to an anarchist
Then through a miracle, I cannot really describe ridiculed the literature of the day, and then a group in Zürich—I went there too, though I
it, how our activity came to be called Dada—so very famous event was when Ball wrote his first usually nearly went to sleep as it was very
this spontaneous aggressive activity which is the sound poem `Gaggi Beni Bimba' which became boring—Ball was very much interested in it. Of
kernel of Dadaism came more and more to the the beginning of a series of studies of sounds, Lenin we heard very little—they say he once
fore and all of a sudden we called ourselves which is a part of the literary side of Dada that went to the cabaret—I never saw him. I don't
Dadaists, what we did Dadaism and the more we tried to go into the origin of language and know even how he looks.
aggressive we became the more Dada also. That sounds, especially Hausmann did that later in Then Ball withdrew and I decided to continue
was the beginning of Dadaism in Zurich. Ball Berlin though I don't know what he did; he was my study of medicine, going back to Germany.
finally left the cabaret and we became more and a rather cantankerous person and you never My parents became old and they asked me to
more audacious in literature. We were in a way could touch him because he felt he did not get come back to Germany and I decided to do so. I
influenced by Futurism then—Tzara knew very enough recognition. So I touched him several left the cabaret, behind were Tzara and Ianko and
much about modern literature and painting, times and then I gave up. In my Fantastic Arp, and a new man came called Hans Richter.
much more than all of us did, and he talked to Prayers which is my first book of poetry. I They opened up a gallery in Zurich and
us about Futurism and we started to read started too, even before Ball, with sound poetry. really made art. Here is the point I would
Marinetti and saw the pictures of Boccioni and The cabaret went bankrupt anyway, and one like you to understand if you know a little bit of
all these people. So it was a mixture of politics day it had to close, but shortly before it closed psychology—you know that I am a psychiatrist—
and art what we did, but the real serious effort Ball withdrew to southern Switzerland to I have to say the following: we were full of
was on the side of politics. write. He was then already a kind of mystical revolution, we were full of protest, not only
against the politics of the German Empire but
against the ordinary man, against progress,
against pollution, the growing pollution (the
word was not known at this time but we anti-
cipated it already) not only of water and air, but
the growing pollution of man as well, who
massed together with a rising buying rate and a
rising crime rate and less of humanity every day.
Now Ball withdrew to the southern part of
Switzerland as I said, and I went back to
Germany. Now, here is the point, our
spontaneity, our fury, our ire had to be
expressed somehow, so it came out, it's nearly a
tragedy or a comedy, that all the revolutionaries
in the Cabaret Voltaire were artists.
When we wanted really to express ourselves
the artistic powers of ours came to the fore and I
wrote poetry and novels and the other persons
started to paint. At this time I didn't paint yet.
I'm not a painter in the sense that I start at two
years or three to paint and then become a great
painter—I started when I liked it to express my
protest. I started to paint in 194o in New York.
I was already by then a successful psychiatrist—
think of that, a psychiatrist who starts to paint
revolutionary pictures. I didn't end up in an
institution either, in spite of all that I'm still very
reasonable.
There is another thing which is more and
more important; the more I joined this protest
the more I came back to something which has
been with me till this very day, this kind of belief
that the world can only hold together if it is
helped by a moral idea of freedom and
individuality. That has been following me all my
5 Bookjacket for Phantastische Gebete — poems by
Richard Huelsenbeck, drawings by George Grosz. life, this basic idea, and I have tried to bring it
Published by Der-Malik Verlag, Berlin, 192o. together with my ideas of socialism and other
6 Programme for a Dada evening, 1918. things, but I finally always came back to the
idea that there is nothing worse than the
7 Bookjacket for Dada Almanach, edited by Richard
Huelsenbeck, published by E. Reiss Verlag, Berlin, suppression of free expression of individuality.
192o. From there—as I couldn't express myself very
8 Dada gathering in Weimar, 1922. From left to rig' well in politics, I'm not a politician, I despise
Schwitters, Arp, Max Burchartz, Frau Burchartz, them in general— I thought what can I do for
Hans Richter, Nelly van Doesburg, Cornelis van
Eesteren, Theo van Doesburg, Peter Röhl, Frau human beings, and the decisive point was when
Röhl, Werner Graeff. I thought if I cannot help people in general as a
politician, to hell with it, try to help them
9 Hans Arp with Richard Huelsenbeck on the
individually—and so I became a psychiatrist.
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